


Humid // Breathless

by madelita



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25464319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madelita/pseuds/madelita
Summary: He thinks, if he’s suffocating when he’s alone, and he’s suffocating when Kuroba is with him, he’d much rather be with Kuroba.
Relationships: Hakuba Saguru/Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid
Comments: 4
Kudos: 75





	Humid // Breathless

**Author's Note:**

> There were long periods when I was just sitting on this, hoping that when I come back to it, I'll miraculously figure out how to make it better, but that never quite happened, so I just decided to post it.
> 
> Nothing new, just the usual good ol' sagukai pining, because I love it, I'm horrible, and I refuse to improve.
> 
> It is unbeta'd, so there are probably mistakes in there. I'm sorry about that.
> 
> Please enjoy!

When Saguru catches himself tracing the organized mess of Kuroba’s room for the tenth time, he forces himself to look at something, anything else. He rules out the movie they’re supposed to be watching, with its messy plot and questionable acting choices, and, for the sake of his sanity, he rules out Kuroba too, who is singing along to the background music now with his own sweet, tumbling English.

In the end, he’s drawn to the angry grey clouds outside, the reason the room is thrown into the uncertain half-light of an afternoon waiting for rain. He traces their shape, watches as they chase each other for a bit. He enjoys the few moments before he sinks back into the exhausting, senseless mush of his own thoughts.

He thinks, he wishes Kuroba was as touchy as people think he is.

He wishes taking someone’s hand wasn’t so inherently romantic, so his touch could be casual when he does it.

If. If he could. If he dared.

(Instead, he tangles his fingers into the plush comforter draped over their legs, takes a little solace in Kuroba’s bony knee pushing into his thigh.)

Saguru wants to rest his head on Kuroba’s shoulder. He keeps sitting with his back against the wall.

He’s conscious of the distance between them. There’s too much space -- they could fill it with their breaths but they both keep facing forward. His ear tingles. If Kuroba turned, just a little, to the side, Saguru could feel that rush of air when he laughs.

His palms are clammy and his heart beats fast, while his brain wears itself out with aimless, blind anxiousness. He feels as if he’s on the cusp of something greater than what he can understand, but the truth is, he knows. He does understand, for all that it makes him feel mortified. His body responds to a feeling older than rational thought, but he could break it down into chemical elements and circumstances, each carefully catalogued instance of him falling deeper for Kuroba.

Just in the last thirty minutes, he imagined Kuroba resting his hand against where his pulse beats so many different ways and so vividly, he almost knows what it feels like to have those rough finger pads on the tender skin of his neck.

He doesn’t think about the long case in England. The plane ticket sitting on his desk at home.

Kuroba does.

“When are you leaving tomorrow?”

His lungs are empty when Kuroba looks at him.

“At noon.”

Kuroba nods to himself and turns back to the movie. Saguru falls back into the pool of his own mind.

Outside, the air is pregnant with the coming rain. Anticipation builds in the world outside -- Saguru himself can feel it in his veins.

He thinks, if he’s suffocating when he’s alone, and he’s suffocating when Kuroba is with him, he’d much rather be with Kuroba.

He’d much rather say: “Hold me close until I figure this out,” and then Kuroba could hold him forever. Or maybe just “Hold me close,” because he wants it. Not out of pity that Kuroba dreads, not out of the confused mess in his heart, but because it’s good to be close, and it’s better to be closer.

The movie is about to end when the first raindrops hit the windows. Kuroba has given up on following the plot by now as well -- they watch the sky fall down together.

The clouds open up and soak the ground with rain, and Saguru hopes his mouth would open too and his heart could empty itself before it bursts. But the world finds its catharsis on its own, and his words get stuck behind his teeth.

Kuroba looks for something else to watch without even asking. When that ends, another. They move, they talk, they eat. The distance between them remains.

It’s late by the time Saguru gets ready to leave. Deep, sprawling puddles glitter under the streetlights. The clouds wrung themselves out twice over during the afternoon, now there’s nothing left of them but weightless white wisps over the stars. Saguru envies them.

His hands twitch uselessly at his side. Even now, he just wants to pull Kuroba closer.

And Kuroba stands in the doorway, backlit by the house, watching him with half lidded eyes as if in waiting, but Saguru doesn’t dare to hope. Doesn’t dare to remember the clothes hanger that’s just for his coat, the mug that’s pretty much his, the oversized pyjamas Kuroba accidentally bought but kept because they fit Saguru.

“We’ll stay in touch,” he says, and it’s not enough.

It’s never enough. He never is.

He might have a clue what could be enough, but it hurts to think of it if he can’t bring himself to do it.

That night, long after he’s supposed to be asleep, on the black canvas of the ceiling, his brain paints the image of Kuroba bathed in that orange light.

* * *

The next day, Saguru is resigned. Resigned to the bed he left after not getting any sleep, and to the breakfast he couldn’t stomach, to the humid air that greeted him when he left the house, and the way his palms grew clammy around the handle of his bag. To the love song so loud it escaped someone’s headphones and wormed itself under Saguru’s skin.

He’s resigned to the defeated relief washing over him, now that it’s over, and to the desperate hope that says it’s not.

“It’s alright,” he tells himself. Not because it is, but because it’s going to be.

His flight is delayed. Of course it is, a storm is coming. Again.

He’s not in a hurry to go back to England, though it might be a relief to be already sitting on that plane instead of waiting in the terminal, watching the grey clouds rush by not unlike yesterday and remembering.

Most of all, he remembers the look Kuroba last gave him, a look he didn’t dare to understand. And since he didn’t last night, why should he do it now? What would it accomplish?

What would happen if he called Kuroba now? Told him he wanted to kiss him there on the porch? And even before that, when it was just the two of them in Kuroba’s bedroom and they were so close it hurt not to be even closer. And before that, all the moments when Saguru found himself wanting.

What if he told Kuroba he loves him?

Saguru feels sick. He sways on his feet and needs a damn break from his own mind and his own heart, and Kuroba especially, because-

“Hakuba!”

...

For a moment, he thinks he’s imagining Kuroba in the middle of the crowd, but the closer he is, the more real he gets. Saguru has spent too much time in his own head -- suddenly, he can’t place the Kuroba who isn’t imaginary. But Kuroba _is_ real, he is _there_ , hunched over and panting, lit up for a moment by the lightning outside. When he looks up, his face is overbright with exertion and some terrifying emotion Saguru can’t name.

He’s beautiful.

Saguru struggles to pull air into his lungs and speak, but he knows he has to. He needs to smile, or even smirk, and ask: “Came to see me off?”

And he does, he tries. The words are on the tip of his tongue.

Kuroba grabs his collar and kisses him.

Saguru feels himself… cease, right then and there. The thunder outside swallows up the noise in the back of his throat, and he can’t feel the way his hands are raised in some aborted motion. Even the way his heart stops and kickstarts again with a painful thud has faded into the background, and there’s nothing, nothing left of him, except a raw nerve that’s only for Kuroba.

And maybe someone wiser, more observant would take note of Kuroba’s eyes that are squeezed shut or the not-quite-there tremor of his clenched fingers, but for him, there’s only the touch of their lips.

Saguru is drowning, and he doesn’t mind it one bit.

His imagination can’t live up to this. Saguru doesn’t know why he thought it ever could. Each clumsy, embarrassing moment where he pressed his own fingers to his lips, closed his eyes and _wished,_ it is now washed away. Every part of him seems to sigh with relief, singing with the same thought: finally close enough.

Kuroba pulls back too soon -- Saguru couldn’t memorize everything there is to their kiss. There’s only enough space between them for each other’s breath, but Saguru still reaches out to grab him by the arms. Now that he knows what it’s like to be so close, he doesn’t want to separate.

“I didn’t get to do this yesterday,” Kuroba starts, as he looks at Saguru through his eyelashes, “but I…”

_Yesterday doesn’t matter,_ he wants to reply, but it’s easier to pull Kuroba back in and kiss him like he’s been meaning to all this time.

He loves how Kuroba comes alive: he jolts, then pushes closer, melts into their kiss, and his hands wander from Saguru’s collars to his neck -- this, too, feels so much better than he imagined -- until his arms come to rest on Saguru’s shoulders. There, he settles, and Saguru is free to bask in his warmth, in their shared proximity.

This time, they part much slower, almost hesitant, stray back for a couple more pecks before Kuroba hides his face in Saguru’s neck.

He feels more than he hears Kuroba chuckle.

“You're holding me so tight… I’m not the one who’s leaving.”

He squeezes Kuroba against his chest. “I’ll come back.”

“You’d better.” Kuroba shuffles on his feet, still in Saguru’s hold and nuzzles against his neck a little, almost as if it’s unintentional. “Or I’ll go after you.” He doesn’t reply, just buries his face in Kuroba’s hair, unashamed of the wide smile he hides there.

All of this is making it harder to leave.

But Saguru doesn’t complain.


End file.
